The Queen II: Fifteen Years Later
by lemondropseverus
Summary: One-shot Sequel to The Queen.This is the final chapter in the love between Kat and Henry. A suitable conclusion to a less than suitable match.Follow the King of England in his last days as he ponders his life, his regrets, his missed opportunities.


**A/N: I know that it has been ages since I posted in The Tudors community, but this work has been on my computer for ages and I decided (after watching the first season of this great TV show) to finish it and post it.  
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**This is a tribute to all those who followed my first fanfiction ever "The Queen" and have supported me and my efforts as a writer. Thank you. **

Note: When young Henry Brandon thinks about Queen Catherine, he refers to Catherine Parr who is the current queen in the timeline of this story. Also, although the real Henry Brandon is supposed to be around ten when his father dies and as such he would be around 12 in this story, I am taking an artistic licence and I am making him slightly older (around 2-3 years older)

2nd Note: Also, as I have been doing throughout the 11 chapters of the main story, I will take some liberties with history, to properly place this story within a rational timeline. As I said before, Quadrilater does not exist and has no correspondent within history, and as such, neither do the events and people that are related to it. For the purpose of further clarity, this is the timeline that exists in my mind and within which this story, and the initial story, exist:

**TIMELINE**

1509- Henry marries Catherine of Aragon

_28th (or 29th, considering that leap years weren't taken into consideration until 1582) of February, 1514- Katherine, the second daughter of King George and Queen Margaret of Quadrilater is born_

1522- Anne comes to court

1527- Henry tells Catherine that he wants a divorce (after 18 years of marriage)

June 18, 1529 – Catherine makes her impassioned speech during the Legatine Court

October 1529- Thomas More becomes chancellor

December 24, 1529- Henry tells Catherine that the Church of Canterbury is more important than that of Rome and that he intends to declare the pope a heretic.

_January 1530- Scared of a potential separation from Rome, Thomas More convinces the parliament to allow the king to remarry only if he chooses a Catholic bride of royal blood. _

_February 1530- the search for a new wife begins although it's thoroughly unsuccessful as not many European princesses are willing to marry what they consider to be a married man. _

_October 1530- Thomas Moore and the parliament decide on Kat as the future wife of the king._

_March- 1531, Kat leaves for England (chapter 1) _

_April 1531- Henry and Kat meet at Whitehall (chapter 1)_

_May 1531- King George dies in a hunting accident and two weeks after, his wife dies as well, apparently, from a broken heart. (Mentioned in chapter 3) _

_April-June 1531- Kat meets Catherine of Aragon, Mary and gets to know the king better (chapter 2) _

June 1531- Henry tries to appease Catherine by allowing her to see her daughter _(although__it__is__a__historical__event,__its__correspondent__in__The__Queen__is__the__altercation__between__Kat__and__Cromwell__in__chapters__3__and__4)_

_12th June (The same day) 1531- Kat finds out her parents died and that she is queen of Quadrilater (chapter 4) _

_13th June 1531- Kat and Charles spend the night together and Catherine falls ill. (chapter 5) _

_July 1st 1531- Kat signs the document through which she agrees to marry the king (chapter 6) _

July 14 1531- Catherine of Aragon is banished from court and Henry never sees her again. _(true__historical__event,__showed__in__chapter__6)_

_July 16 1531- Armanda tells Damian that Kat is getting married in two days and he decides to hasten his plans for attack (chapter 6) _

_July 18th 1531- Henry Marries Kat (he is 40 years old and she is 17) (chapter 7) _

_December 1531- Damian's armies attack Agnor, the capital of Quadrilater (chapter 8) _

_January 1532- Mary and Kat visit her mother, she finds out that her country is under attack and is imprisoned in the Tower (chapter 8) _

_Beginning of February, 1532- Henry finds out that Kat is pregnant and takes her out of the Tower of London (chapter 9) _

_March 1532- She asks Henry to allow her to go back to her country but he refuses (chapter 10)_

_Early April 1532- She aborts her child and with Charles' help she flees England. (end of chapter 10/ chapter 11)_

_Late April-Beginning of May, 1532- Henry annuls his marriage to Kat and is free to pursue his relationship with Anne _

October, 1532 - Henry and Anne live together openly in Greenwich

January 25, 1533- Henry marries Anne Boleyn

(the events in italic are obviously fictive)

Disclaimer: Neither do I own The Tudors or the actual Tudor dynasty. If I did I would have kicked Henry where it hurts the most the first time he decided to cheat on his wife.

**Challenge: For all of you who are history buffs and love the Tudor dynasty, I have a small challenge. Tell me what is the historical significance of the date mentioned in the letter contained within this one-shot? (and speculate why, within the context of The Queen, I chose that particular date to place the event the letter talks about) . Probably many of you will get this right but I am looking forward to seeing your answers. **

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><p><strong>THE QUEEN II: Fifteen<strong>** Years Later**

_A One-Shot Sequel _

"_**Death is a great revealer of what is in a man, and in its solemn shadow appear the naked lineaments of the soul." (E. H. CHAPIN, Living Words)**_

**January 1547**

The King of England felt his life slipping away from him. He was old. The miseries of his life, the errors of his ways had been coming to him in full force in the past few days. His only male heir, a young child of only nine, sickly and weak, locked away from the world, was far too innocent to be king. His daughters, Mary and Elizabeth carried their own demons and ambitions of power as well, and Henry shuddered to think what was to happen after he passed on. Maybe that was why, in his last days on this earth, he was seeing the mothers of his children. Maybe their appearance was a manifestation of his guilt. Maybe they were there to remind him once again that his life was nothing more than a series of errors and that his kingdom would soon turn into a pile of rubble because of the resentment that his own actions bred into his children.

When his first wife had appeared, the King felt afraid not only because he feared retribution, but also because he thought that she had come as an emissary of death. Yet, seeing Katherine, so calm and composed asking for her daughter in her kind yet chiding voice, dispelled the feeling quickly, and replaced it with something that the king recognised as guilt. He knew that he had wronged Katherine and continued to wrong Mary for not arranging a marriage for her. He understood, in the back of his head that his pursuit of Anne Boleyn only led to misery for both himself and his first queen. And yet, it was not for this very rational reason that he felt bad for seeing Katherine of Aragon. No. It was because upon seeing the woman that had devoted most of her life to him, he remembered how painfully comfortable he felt in her presence. He remembered that she had been the first great love of his life and realized for a moment, only for a second, that he missed her.

Then Anne came. Passionate Anne who he had killed mercilessly. Maybe it was the guilt, maybe it was some repressed sense of nostalgia, but he felt the passions of his youth returning with haste. While Katherine had made him feel comfortable even when she was chiding him for his unfairness towards her daughter, Anne made his blood boil once again. She proclaimed her innocence, she accused him of being unfair to Elizabeth she even looked down upon him for what he had done to Katherine Howard. And yet, despite those words he could not help but feel the old flame of their love rekindle itself. King Henry looked upon his wife, the woman he had reformed England for, the woman that had made him cross boundaries that should have not been touched and he could feel his heart twitch with regret for how things ended with Anne. Once more, like she had done in life, she had him under her spell to the point that the man almost begged her not to leave. It was fruitless for the dead stay with the dead and like Katherine before her, Anne disappeared leaving him with a bitter taste in his mouth.

He was not afraid of Jane. He knew that out of all his wives she was the one he had been kind to. She was the one that would have nothing to accuse him of. He had been wrong. When the woman that had fulfilled his greatest desire for a male heir announced that his son was to die young, Henry could feel his heart drop to his stomach and his knees weaken. He knew that his son was not as strong as other nine year olds, he knew that he could have done a better job of making him acquainted with the ways of the world, he knew that even in this instance where he thought he had done nothing wrong he still had made some errors. Oddly enough, unlike Katherine and Anne's appearances, Jane did not stir any feelings in itself. He did feel awful for how he had raised his son but he was surprised to discover that the woman he had vowed to love above all others did not rouse a sense of passion, of love but one of deep devotion. The same devotion that a hungry man feels for the one that feeds him.

He did not expect to see her, but in his heart he knew that she will come. Like Katherine, Anne and Jane she appeared before him just the way he remembered her. Long red hair tied in a loose bun, white porcelain skin being almost translucent, blue eyes still holding the youthful mischievous glare of a seventeen year old. She stood in front of his bed, the pale moonlight shining on her form. Katherine, his Kat, the woman that had brought him down to his knees, the woman he had once dreamed to spend a lifetime with stood in front of him, untouched by age by sickness and by death.

"Kat…" he whispered in his hoarse voice, marked by the pains and tribulations of old age. "Why are you here?"

She looked into his eyes with the stare he remembered and loved. The king felt his pulse quicken as he met her eyes and for a second he could visualize all the moments they have been together. In that blue unyielding, stubborn gaze he could see the girl he had met struggling to walk the steps of Whitehall, he could see the woman he had kissed covered in dirt from head to toe in the middle of the forest, he could see the woman that inspired such lust that he had taken her countless times without ceremony in his office. He could remember all that and much more and yet his mind seemed to block away the moments of anger, hatred and despise between therm. He did not remember their formidable fights, her insults, her defiance. As he looked at his former queen, he wondered why she was not there in flesh, to care for him, to love him. Then reality splashed him wide awake and he realized all the heartache they have caused one another.

"It could have been so different, Henry" the ghostly appearance said with a shadow of regret. "We could have been so happy."

"You betrayed me. You left after you killed my heir." He said bitterly, his memories of their unpleasant moments together coming back in full force upon hearing her voice.

"My only regret is that I was so rash to convict you, to blame you, to never understand you" he said with a bitter smile looking into the face of the one that had been his wife. She smiled and leaned on the window pane, with a pensive look as she gazed at the sleeping city of London. She looked so much like she had almost fifteen years before that the king could feel his heart twinge painfully.

"Yes. You never did understand my motives. And yet, I forgive you for it. For I never truly understood you either" she said with an absent voice. Turning away from the window she looked into his blue eyes, untouched by old age. "On that day, when I left… if it had been you and not Charles on that deck… I would have forgotten about Quadrilater and stayed here" she stated simply, a bitter smile gracing her young features.

"You would have?" he asked confused, his mind trying to process the million ways in which his life would have been different. Maybe they would have had more children, maybe it would have been her to care for him now and not Katherine Parr, maybe the cycle of blood and death would have been stopped. So many things. So many lost opportunities.

He looked at the figure of his second wife and felt his heart flutter with emotion. The same emotion he had felt when he had seen her the first time, trying so hard not to trip on the hems of her dress while she was walking up the stairs of Whitehall. Such frailty in those gentle hands, such joy in those sparkling blue eyes. Why wasn't she there, with him?

He realized that despite the bittersweet ending of their relationship, he only wished her well.

"What happened to you?" he realized that in all those years after she left, he did not even try to find out what had been the fate of his second wife. Had she regained her title as Queen of Quadrilater? Was she still alive?

"I am a figment of your imagination. I know as much as you do, Henry." She chided softly

"So all the things you said. About staying if I had come to see you off? They are…" his voice trailed off and looked at Kat for some answers.

"They are what you want me to say. They are what you want Kat to say." She explained softly and a wave of realization hit him. Like with Katherine, Anne and Jane she was one of the many instances in which he had been wrong. His mind was tormenting him by bringing back those he had lost. Yet, out of all the ladies she was the only one who had forgiven him.

"You are not real. You are not her"

"I am how you remember her to be. I am the way you wish to see her" Kat, no, the figure said softly.

"You forgave me…." He whispered looking at the image of the woman.

"You wanted me to. You wanted it so badly that your mind created me for the sole purpose of forgiving you…" she stated simply. The woman rose from her place next to him and placed a soft kiss on his lips. If felt so real, so genuine so true to what he had remembered Kat's touch to be that tears spilled from his eyes uncontrollably. He looked up, desperate to see her beautiful face, her blue sea-like eyes, but she was gone. Again.

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><p>Henry Brandon, now second duke of Suffolk, after his father had died almost two years earlier, was unsure if he should show his godfather, the king, what he had found in his parent's personal effects. The young man had postponed removing his father's personal items for more than a year, knowing that once he removed all those items the reality of his parent's death would be unquestionable. Yet, at the urging of his mother, who firmly believed that dealing with this particular chore would speed his, in her opinion ridiculously long, grieving process, he started one day to clear his late father's office. There, in a wooden box labelled "Henry", he had found the object that was the source of his conundrum. Although the box was quite large, it held only two objects: a letter written on an aging piece of paper and a small golden ring. He had approached the mysterious box with excitement, thinking that the box and the missive in it represented a last communication from his father. After all, it did have his name written on it. Yet, upon reading what the letter contained he immediately knew that it was addressed to his royal namesake and not to him.<p>

Although in his will Charles had bequeathed various objects upon the king, testimony of the long lasting friendship they had during life, he had never mentioned this particular item. The letter spoke of things he had never known and of event that had happened before his time on earth begun. When he asked his mother about the content of the letter, she smiled serenely and explained that the person the letter was referring to was a great friend of his father's and one of King Henry's wives. He had never heard of her. The king's marriages were common knowledge in court and from a very young age Henry had been told the story of how the king's love for Anne Boleyn had converted an entire country to Protestantism. Being secret supporters of Catholicism, both had openly showed, within the confines of their own home and far away from the ears of servants, disapproval towards the religious reforms and both of them criticized the woman that his father often referred to as the "Great Harlot". He, of course had known about the king's first wife, the late Catherine of Aragon, who his mother claimed to have been a great friend of her own mother and towards whom his father showed great respect and reverence. Henry had visited the grave of Jane Seymour and had paid his respects towards the woman who had given England a living heir. He had been with his parents to meet and receive the king's subsequent wife, Lady Anne of Cleves. To show his son the consequences of treason, Charles had taken his son to witness the sad execution of the young and naive Catherine Howard. And of course, Henry knew, and even had the honour to be in her presence, about the king's latest wife, Queen Catherine. But he knew nothing about the woman that the letter claimed to be the king's second wife. This woman, this Katherine, had never been mentioned by anyone. Ever.

From his parent's stories he had simply supposed that Queen Catherine was the king's sixth wife and although he didn't have much interest in his royal namesake's emotional affairs, he had been shocked to hear that there had been a seventh queen. Or better said, according to his mother, a second queen. After all, how could someone as important as a queen simply disappear? His mother's information on the subject was lacking at best. Catherine Brandon, then Willoughby, had only been very briefly acquainted with Katherine of Quadrilater and only knew what her late husband had told her on the subject. Which, in truth, wasn't much , and it certainly wasn't nearly sufficient to satisfy her son's curiosity.

From the little that he had been told by his mother, Henry derived three things that were in his mind certain: this Katherine had been a beautiful young girl with red hair and blue eyes; she had married the king immediately after his first wife was banished, and the king had done everything possible to erase her memory. No portraits of her were present in court. Her name wasn't even mentioned. While his first two conclusions were of no real consequence for Henry, the last one did pose certain problems. On the one hand, from what he had read from the letter, that former queen seemed like a honourable, brave, person and the young man wanted to have the strength to do what his father could not and satisfy her wishes. On the other hand, he did trust his father's judgement and he must have had his reasons for not showing the letter to the king. Yet, in the end, the young man's dreams of being a gallant hero, helping fulfil the wishes of a damsel in distress won and one cold January evening, Henry Brandon mounted his horse and proceeded towards Whitehall.

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><p><em>Dear Lord of Suffolk,<em>

_I know you have been a great friend to my sister, Katherine, and as such I feel it is my duty to inform you of her fortune. It is on her order that I write to you now, for she felt it would only be appropriate for you to know. You, the one she has held in the highest regard as a friend and companion. _

_It is with great pain and sorrow that I must announce that Katherine has been executed by the order of our lord Damian, king of Quadrilater, charged with high treason. After four years of fierce civil war, she has been captured by the armies of my husband. I fear that it was as much her doing as the doing of our current king. You see, in the past four years Quadrilater has been ravaged by the sickness of war, has been rendered weak and my sister, who loved her land above all else, might have decided to spare it of such misery. The details of her capture are still unclear to me, yet what I know is that my sister went to her death with a smile on her face. _

_The last time I saw her was when I was instructed to write this letter. She was much changed from what I remembered her to be. No longer the happy girl with untamed fire in her eyes. War and maybe the failure of her marriage, seemed to have drained her of all worldly pleasures. She was broken and tired, and yet so peaceful._

_She told me that she had given her word to someone that one day she would be a great queen and that if her death saved the people of our country from the ravages of war, she would accept it freely and willingly. She talked about your friendship and how, because of you, she managed to see her country one more time. She spoke of the child she had lost and confessed that it was one of the greatest errors of her life to dispose of him. Then, surprisingly she told me of her love for that man. I must confess that I almost lost my temper during Katherine's account of her marriage at various points and by the end of it, I had decided that I shall hate the man you call your king, the man my sister called her husband, for all eternity. And yet, despite the wretched nature of their relation she loved him. She never said it out loud, but I could see from her countenance how deeply affected she was by the way in which things ended between them._

_I must say that in the fifteen years I lived with Katherine, before I married and established my own household, I have never seen her cry. I have seen her shout in anger, I have seen her smile in happiness, but I never saw her cry. Not even when she was faced with her own mortality and was looking at her executioner in the eye, did she loose her composure. Yet, as she talked about the time she had spent in England as its Queen and her marriage, she allowed tears to fall on her cheeks. I believe they were tears of regret and not of sadness. _

_January 7th 1536 will forever be remembered in the memory of our people as the day when the blood of our most beloved queen was spilled. The flower and the grass wept throughout the country on that day and I am ashamed to say that my very own husband was the perpetrator of this injustice. Katherine was a woman that was born outside of her time. She was a visionary, she was a strategist and had the makings of a great ruler, despite her condition as a woman. Maybe, had she been allowed to, had she not died at the tender age of almost twenty two, she would have done great things, not only for our country, but for the whole world. _

_Her last words, like her entire existence, were simple and dignified .She did not deliver a flourished and embellished speech, for that was hardly in her character. Those words spoke volumes of who she was and what she believed in, and like her they were simple and uncomplicated in appearance but carried a deeper meaning. From the wooden scaffold she addressed the crowd and did not excite them towards rebellion. She carried no resentment towards those that had betrayed her, she did not curse those that cut her life short. Instead she only said: _

"_I will not ask absolution for what I have done. I do, however, ask forgiveness for what I haven't." _

_Those are her exact words for they have been burned in my memory and been plaguing me ever since. The Katherine that I knew had no regrets. Even when we were children, my sister did whatever she pleased, whenever she wished to do it. This censure to which she was confessing was something new. What paths had she closed? What roads did she regret not taking? I cannot help but wonder if the regret that she was so candidly confessing to in her latest hour was in any way related to her life in England. I understand that your lordship was among the few who knew her well there, and as such you might be able to derive more meaning than myself._

_News from England barely reaches us nowadays but I hope that all is well in the country that my sister regarded as her second home. If you ever do decide to reply to this letter, please do not give me news of that man. I do not wish to know what has become of him, for I believe that him, together with my own lord and master, have been the chief architects of my sister's downfall. Had he been able to make her happy, she would have never returned. She would have never died._

_Through this letter I ask you to also honour my sister's last wish. She did not ask for a proper funeral, she did not ask for monuments to be erected in her name and masses to be said for her soul. Instead, she only asked me to find a way to return her wedding band to England. As an ultimate tribute to a love I am frankly unable to understand, she refused to die without her wedding ring and instead, apologizing for the gruesome task she was demanding of me, Katherine told me to take the ring off her finger after she left this world. She said that the only person in the world that she wishes to be remembered by is him. She said that the only person she hopes she will be forgiven by is him. _

_I am enclosing the ring within this letter. I personally think that her wish was misplaced and I leave it to your lordship's good conscience to honour it or not. Please do not give the ring to that man if he is going to sully her memory. Do not give it away to be destroyed, for this is the last remaining piece of my sister's soul. If he already forgot her, if he is unworthy of this last earthly display of love and loyalty, do not give it to him. Instead, keep it safe, for I am sure that you will know how to honour its significance better than him. The day we all meet in heavens she will forgive us. _

_The warmest regards, _

_Armanda, Queen Consort of Quadrilater_

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><p>The king took the package that Charles' son handed him and read the letter. She had died. By now the earth of her beloved country was covering her sad remains. By now, all that was left of his beloved Kat were bones and dust. He wondered for a moment if the bastard that had taken her country and her life had bothered to give her a proper funeral. A funeral fit for a queen. He realized, not without a certain amount of pain, that if Damian was in any way like Henry himself, who had allowed two of his wives to rot in unnamed graves in the courtyard of the Tower, he probably did not. His poor, sad Kat. His pure, idealistic wife who loved her country above all else, forgotten in some cold dump.<p>

He did not know whether Charles replied or not. But if he did, he could only hope that his faithful friend had exposed the situation of the country as gently as possible. Henry was no fool, he realized that his absurd ambition to have a son, and to satisfy his carnal lust had almost torn the country apart. Now, when the hour when he would meet his maker drew near, he could frankly admit to himself that he was ashamed of what he had done.

He felt tears fill his eyes not only for her, but for him as well. Their love had been consuming, noxious even. It had been the kind of love that produces more suffering than joy. It had been the kind of love that happens only once in a lifetime and, like everything which is beautiful and special, is bound to end. And it did end. And the end of their love had been truthful to both their characters, a pure manifestation of their combined flaws and qualities. Their marriage was ended by ambition and stubbornness. The outcome of their short-lived love had been regrets and unfulfilled promises. And yet, there was something beautiful about the whole ordeal. Had Kat been another, had she been less stubborn, less arrogant, less loyal to her country, he wouldn't have loved her. Had he been different, had he been more lenient and understanding towards her, she would have never remembered him as the love of her life. Because of who they were, because of their strong-willed and horribly matched characters, they had created a story, which, no matter how short, had changed their lives. Who knew how different would have been Henry's life had she not appeared in his world?

"_I will not ask absolution for what I have done. I do, however, ask forgiveness for what I haven't." _

He read her last words once more and a smile appeared at the corners of his aging mouth. How right she had been to not ask forgiveness for what she had done. Had she stayed in England, she would have been unhappy. Even as his wife and Queen, her mind and heart would have always been with her country. Her lack of presence of mind would have embittered their life together and had she died before him, he would have remembered her as his uncaring, unfeeling wife. Yet, she had stood by her own beliefs. She left him. She defied him. She got away. And thus, she was burned, and had been for the past fifteen years, in his mind and heart as the only woman that never bowed to his wished. For that, although he desperate wished he did not, Henry admired her. He loved her. Still…

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><p>On the 28th of January 1547, the fifty five year old king of England, called Henry the VIII by his subjects and Harry by his friends, died alone in his royal apartments in Whitehall. As the courtiers took his body to be prepared for the necessary service before being put in his final resting place, they could see that two rings were placed on the king's left hand. Big and sumptuous, as if speaking of the glamour of a time that would never come back, the two wedding bands had the intertwined H and K in capital letters on them. Those that were too young to remember simply assumed that this was the king's last tribute towards the woman that was currently his wife and that had cared for him in his hour of need. But there were others, much older, that knew better. As they buried their sovereign next to the woman that had fulfilled his greatest wish, they knew that fifteen years prior they had seen the same ring on the gentle white hands of a red-haired girl of seventeen.<p>

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><p>AN: I hope you enjoyed this mini-sequel and I hope it does tie some loose ends nicely. I don't know if any of you are still reading The Queen, or if you remember the story, but if you do, please send me your thoughts through your reviews. I know I am about two years too late in posting this, but I would still really like to know what you think. And don't forget about the challenge!


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